Above and Beyond
by Withering
Summary: [AU][SanMir] Sango’s barely making it by in a new school and a new city. Top that off with the fact she’s now got a lecherous guy following her around claiming to be her guardian angel and Sango’s ready to check in with an asylum.
1. The Choosing

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: **Just to let everybody know, this is an AU, and it's also a Sango/Miroku—they will be the main pairing for the story, although there will be some minor Inuyasha/Kagome.

**DISCLAIMER: **Well, I do own _some _Inuyasha… as in some subs and mangas. But not the actual series. I think Rumiko Takahashi owns that.

**ABOVE AND BEYOND**

**Chapter One: **_The Choosing_

**

* * *

**

_I've been watching you from a distance  
The distance sees through your disguise  
All I want from you is your hurting  
I want to heal you  
I want to save you from the dark_

- Evanescence, "Give Unto Me"

* * *

"… what the hell is _that_?"

Sango sent a death-glare toward her younger brother, who was staring at disgust at the small, run-down apartment they stood in front of, the open door revealing the cramped living room. The eleven-year-old's face was wide with disgust, his freckled nose wrinkled as if to say, "Eww…"

"Stop that," she hissed at him, though in truth she was thinking the exact same thing. "Dad's right behind us."

"But still," Kohaku whispered back. "Look at it. It's… so small. The living room is like the size of our old bathroom."

Sango glanced nervously back at her father, who had just pulled exited from the elevator down the hall. "So," he said, walking up to his children and putting his arms around them, "how do you like it?"

Both Sango and Kohaku looked rather uncomfortable. Their father always been a hands-off sort of man, strict and never too fond of public affection, but ever since their mother had died, it was like he'd felt it was his responsibility to take her place.

"It's fine, Dad," Sango offered, but her voice sounded a bit weak. "I'm sure it will be great."

He nodded enthusiastically. "Yes," he agreed, but his voice came out just a little too bright, as if he were trying to force himself to sound so cheerful. "It is. Just wait until you see the rest of the rooms."

The living room was bad enough—Sango didn't have much of a desire to see the rest of the household. But she just feigned a smile, nudging Kohaku to do the same, and followed her father inside the miniscule apartment.

Up close, the living room was even more awful looking. The carpet was a bright, puke orange color, and she could make out the faint trace of stains, faded with age but still leaving their mark. The wallpaper mismatched horribly with the carpet, pinstriped yellow and blue. The expensive furnishings from their previous home—the ones they hadn't sold, anyway—didn't fit at all. It was like some alternate universe that had mixed in with Sango's old life, reminding her of everything she'd left behind.

"Don't say anything," she muttered to Kohaku as she brushed by him to look down the hallway. Judging from the look on the boy's face, he was too stunned to say anything.

"Sango, where are you off to?"

Great. Her father. She really didn't want to have to keep this charade up; it had been bad enough on the drive there. "I'm just checking out my room, Dad," she said, turning and giving him a forced smile. "I'll be right back."

Before he could make some terrible suggestion like they should all check it out together, Sango bolted down the hallway—about six quick steps, actually, the hallway wasn't very long—and flung open the door to her room, shutting it behind her.

The sight was no better than the living room. The carpet was the same hideous orange, the walls a bright, putrid pink. The one window looked as if it was rusted shut, and accompanied by the lack of space, it felt like a prison cell.

She maneuvered her way around the dresser that obstructed her way to her bed, then plopped down on the quilt—it was scratchy and felt fake, the kind of quilt you found at a hotel, cheap and uncomfortable. It was no shield for her stiff mattress. She'd had to leave her feathered quilt because it was too large for her new, single bed. Her queen bed couldn't fit in the room.

And they'd sold it off for money, anyway.

Three years ago, when Sango's mother had contracted cancer, their family had delved deep into their expenses to pay for the costs of treatment. They'd never been rich, exactly, but they had been well-off, something that had changed as their money slowly dwindled away and her father desperately searched for doctors around the globe that could save his wife. She'd had a rare form of liver cancer, discovered so late that it seemed impossible to save her. But her father hadn't taken no as an answer, working over-time to pay for the bills of the many hospitals and medications. They'd sustained her life for two and a half years, but three months ago, her mother had finally died.

After that, Sango began to notice bills that lay out on the table for months, never paid. Occasionally, someone would call, demanding to speak with her father, or leave angry messages on their answering machine about debts never repaid. Though her father tried to assure her nothing was wrong, she wasn't stupid. They were unable to afford their two cars and large house in the suburbs, despite her father's long hours of work.

So they'd moved, selling their house, car, and possessions, and they'd moved to Tokyo where her father's company had transferred him. Sango protested bitterly to this, but kept it to herself. She wasn't the best at socializing or making new friends—even the girls at her old school had never particularly been close to her; the most she'd ever gotten were some sympathetic looks or the constant comment of, "If you ever need a shoulder to cry on…"

Not that they had to worry. Sango hadn't cried in three years, not since she was thirteen and first heard about her mother's illness.

Something scraped against the door, as if it were feebly beating its hands against the wood. Sango opened the door and smiled as Kirara sidled through the door, purring against her mistress's leg. Sango laughed and scooped her up, sitting back down on the bed as she pet Kirara.

"So how do you like it here, hmm?" she asked.

Kirara blinked her wide, oddly-colored eyes.

"I'll take that as a no," Sango deciphered. "But I guess I can't blame you… so cramped and tight. And outside's disgusting, did you see? There's trash and smoke everywhere. But maybe it's just me. I've never like cities, anyway."

Red eyes blinked in agreement.

Had it been any other animal, Sango would have felt like an idiot speaking with it. But Kirara was different—it was like she understood, like she'd listened when no one else did.

"Hey, sis."

Sango glanced up to see Kohaku in the doorway. The look of shock had ebbed somewhat from his face, although his eyes were still slightly wide as if he was still suffering slightly.

"What?" she asked distantly, rubbing Kirara's fur lightly.

"Have you _seen _this place?" he whispered, giving a careful look down the hallway to see that their father wasn't around. "I mean, look at it. My room's the size of a closet."

She rolled her eyes. "Kohaku, if all you're going to do is whine, then shut up. I'm really not in the mood for it."

"But—"

"But nothing," she cut in. "There's nothing we can do about living here, so we're going to have to learn to deal with it, all right?"

He sighed sulkily, but nodded. "I know," he muttered, scuffing his shoes on the wooden floor. She patted at the spot beside her on the bed and he shuffled over, plopping down next to her. "I just miss our old home, that's all."

"Me too," she murmured softly, ruffling his hair. "God, me too."

* * *

_This is the worst day of my life._

Sango immediately decided this as soon as she reached the building that was to be her new high school. She could tell immediately she didn't belong; clusters of girls stood together outside the large, two-story structure, gossiping and whispering excitedly about their summer. They all knew each other, laughing and hugging and giving compliments on others' tans.

She stood on the outside of all those groups of girls, so obviously alone it was almost painful. She tugged anxiously at her short green skirt, wishing her father could have at least found her a school without such a ridiculous school uniform. When she'd first been issued the skirt, she had thought they had given her a few sizes too small, but judging from the size of the other girls', it was just very, very short. She felt as if her underwear would peek out from behind it at any given moment.

She moved her hands off the hem of her skirt for a second to heft up her book bag and glance at her watch. The bell was supposed to ring soon, right? She wasn't sure how much longer she could stand there so… vulnerably. She felt like the whole world was just staring at her, waiting for her to make a move.

She glanced down at her watch. Two more minutes… not that bad. She could survive two more minutes, no problem.

A boy glanced her way, giving her a wink and a suggestive smile. Sango's face flushed bright pink and she stared intently at her shoes as if the secret to world peace was written there.

A minute and a half…

Her backpack slipped from her shoulder and fell to the sidewalk. A few heads glanced over at the noise it made. Sango blushed even darker and ducked her head, grabbing the backpack and standing up again. Her grip had gotten so tight on her backpack that her knuckles had turned white.

A minute…

She began to tug at her skirt again, certain that it was being blown up by the wind. Why was it none of the other girls were so self-conscious about the length of their skirts? Was she the only one that noticed they were nearing the waist line? Well, no, judging from the grins on all of the boys' faces.

Thirty seconds…

She glanced down at her watch again. Had it frozen or something? It was moving so slowly… that couldn't be normal time. Surely there was something wrong with it. She _had _bought it at one of those cheap junk shops, after all. It must have been malfunctioning.

The bell sounded shrilly, and to Sango's ears, it sounded more beautiful than a Mozart symphony. It rang! It had finally rung! Maybe there _was _a God, and he was listening to her prayers.

She shuffled into the building with the rest of the school, keeping her head down so as not to have to look at anyone. She rifled through her bag until she found her schedule. Locker number 3761, in the 300 wing. Glancing at her map, she saw she was only a corridor away.

_Okay, I just have to get to my locker, make it to homeroom on time, and then get through the classes_…_ and then I'm done_…

For today, at least.

After a few wrong turns, she made it to her locker. Locker 3762's occupant was, at the moment, kicking his locker and cursing profusely. Locker 3760's occupant was currently making out with someone. Between them was her locker, in all of its old, rusty glory.

"Excuse me," she mumbled nervously as she squeezed in between the psychotic, raving boy and the two horny teenagers. She fiddled with the dial on her locker as she put in her combination and opened it. Only… it didn't open.

"Crap," she hissed.

The door was jammed.

She began to rattle it, hoping to somehow maneuver it out from its tight wedge, but nothing happened. She tried the combination again. And again. It didn't work.

Well, this was just great.

As the people on the left side of her shoulder were playing an intense game of tongue twister, Sango turned to the boy who was still kicking at his locker and swearing.

"Do you know how to open this?" she asked, as politely as possible.

Apparently, the politeness went unnoticed. "Shove it, bitch. If you haven't noticed, my locker isn't cooperating too well, either."

A snappy comeback made its way up to her mouth, but Sango held her tongue. She didn't want to get into a fight on the first day of school, especially not with one who looked as mentally unstable as that boy. So she settled for giving a loud, aggravated sigh before turning and heading toward where the map said the office was.

As soon as she had turned the corner and there was no one else around, Sango scowled furiously, clenching her fists at her sides. "Will _nothing _go my way?!" she fumed quietly. She had the strong urge to kick something, but there was nothing in sight but the wall, and she had a feeling the brick wouldn't feel too good against her feet.

"Be happy," a voice whispered in her ear, and Sango whipped around, her eyes widening. Who…?

There was no one there.

_Okay, now I'm going insane. _But she was certain she'd heard a boy's voice. And he'd been speaking to her, she was sure. She'd felt his breath on her cheek.

After darting her eyes to every inch of the hallway, Sango turned to keep walking. She'd imagined it, that was all. Sure, it was a rather weird thing to imagine, but there was no other explanation. It had to be from the lack of sleep.

After a few more strides, she calmed down somewhat, convinced that she was just nervous over school. But her composure was quickly broken when she felt a hand where it was not welcome… to put it simply, on her butt.

With a gasp of horror, she whirled to face the accuser, her hand raised to slap.

Again, there was no one.

_I'm going crazy. _What other person hallucinated about some boy whispering about happiness and then groping her butt? Maybe she should take a stop at the school counselor on her way to the office.

"_And it was then, sir, I felt someone grab my ass, but when I turned around there was no one there."_

…Or maybe not.

* * *

"Dammit, Miroku! This is the whole reason I didn't want you to come!"

Miroku grinned as he watched the girl walk down the hallway. Her eyes were darting to and fro warily, as if expecting someone to jump from a locker at any given moment and attack her.

"Reason?" Miroku repeated with raised eyebrows, though he kept watching the girl until she finally disappeared from view. "Clarify for me, Inuyasha."

Inuyasha scowled, folding his arms. "You know," he muttered. "Groping and stuff. I didn't think you'd stoop so low as to use the fact that no one could see you to grope some innocent girls."

"I did no such thing," Miroku defended. "All I did was encourage her. She looked rather angry, you know."

"Yeah," Inuyasha retorted, "and even angrier when you groped her!"

"I didn't grope her. I was just giving her a little pat of encouragement."

"On her butt?"

"Well… yes. But that's simply because it was the closest thing in range."

"Like hell," Inuyasha snorted. "But if you ever sneak up on Kagome like that, I'll kick your ass so bad you won't be able to wake up for the next week." He paused, then stood up higher in an attempt to look menacing. "You got that, monk?"

Miroku sighed. He was rather new at this… being a Beyond, that was. He had only recently been accepted as one to help Inuyasha with a problem that had been left behind far too long ago. Inuyasha had become a Beyond four months ago, although he hadn't been too happy about the rule that went along with the rite of passage: not only did being a Beyond mean completing the task assigned, but helping out a human being.

"Helping out a human?" Inuyasha had said. "Keh! Can't a human fucking handle itself?"

Although Miroku was fairly sure Inuyasha didn't mind his duty of a Beyond any longer. And that, in part, was due to Kagome Higurashi. Sure, he bitched about her, and called her rude, pushy, stubborn, and whiny. But the truth that Inuyasha just could not hide was the fact that he was utterly in love with her. He claimed he only stuck with her because of the rule, saying he would drop as soon as "this Beyond crap" was over for good. Miroku knew better, though. Inuyasha would stay a Beyond as long as it meant being with Kagome.

Miroku, however, had become a Beyond only days ago, and was still no closer to achieving his mission _or _helping out a person. With some convincing, he'd managed to get Inuyasha to bring him to Kagome Higurashi's high school—if he was going to "help out a human being", he figured he'd find himself a hot girl to help. And who better than a school girl, with their cute, blushing faces and short skirts? He knew what they were like; they would be absolutely enamored by him. What girl _wouldn't _want a rather attractive—if he did say so himself—man to protect and save them, even if he was dead?

The fact was, Miroku was hot, and something as small as death couldn't change that.

"Oy, Miroku! You listening to me?"

Inuyasha's voice was rather grating when he was annoyed—which was most of the time. "Yes, Inuyasha?" he asked with a sigh. Sometimes he wondered how he had become associated with the loud hanyou.

"Can we leave?" Inuyasha asked. "We've been here long enough! Haven't you found someone to stick to yet?"

He thought of the girl, with her wide brown eyes and lovely face. And, of course, her fine ass.

"Yes, Inuyasha," he replied, unable to remove the grin that spread across his face. "I believe I have."

* * *

It didn't make any sense.

Why didn't this make any sense? It was _math_. Math was logical and always made sense. It was always the same, no matter what—it didn't do any sneak attacks or curve balls like the rest of life. You figured out the problem, be it easy or hard, and the answer would always be the same.

That was why Sango liked math so much. It never changed.

But this just didn't make any sense!

Maybe pre-calculus was just a _bit _out of her league. She was only a sophomore, after all; the rest of her class contained either juniors or seniors. But she'd always been good at math, and she'd decided that since her social life was going to be dead this year, she'd at least take some classes where she'd learn something. And pre-calculus seemed promising.

But why didn't it make any sense?

She tried reading over the problem again, but that only increased the dull ache that had been pounding in her head for hours. In desperation, she flipped through her notebook to see if she'd written anything down that day that would help her. Like the last time she'd looked, nothing turned up.

Why did it have to be so freaking impossible?

Sango stood and slammed her book shut in frustration, pulling her legs from under the tiny desk. She banged her knee on the wood and winced. "This day is so shitty," she sighed miserably, rubbing her aching knee.

Kirara mewed half-heartedly from her position on Sango's bed, curled up, her tiny head buried in her fur.

Sango gave Kirara a quick pat, and then headed out of the door. She couldn't keep focusing on that homework—she'd slowly be driven insane if she did. She'd go grab herself something to eat and take a short break. Maybe the math would make some sense when she got back.

The first thing she noticed when she entered the living room was her father. He'd gotten back from work only an hour ago. His work shift was from eight in the morning to seven at night, a long, exhausting shift. Sango had avoided him so far, staying in her room to work on homework or doodle in her notebook. She felt a bit guilty, but she'd rather not have to deal with her father's questions about school.

_Oh, it was great, Dad, _she could imagine herself saying. _I sat by myself during lunch today, I got lost twice, my locker was jammed, and, oh yeah, some phantom boy groped my butt today! Thanks for asking._

Sango swept past the couch where he sat, watching an old rerun on TV. She would just go past him and make it into the kitchen…

"So, Sango, how was school today?"

She didn't stop walking, but she knew she couldn't ignore him or he'd never stop asking. She was sure Kohaku (who was in his room playing Gameboy) had already been bombarded.

"It was okay," she replied as she finally made it into the kitchen and pulled out a few low-fat cookies.

"Okay?" he repeated. His tone was telling her to say more.

"Well, you know," she said with a shrug. "The school was pretty big, and there were a lot of people, so it was a bit hectic. But not too bad."

"That's good," he said amiably.

"Yeah."

She knew if she didn't make a quick escape he would continue his questioning. "Got to split, Dad," she told him as she began to fly toward her bedroom, "homework and all that. So I'll, uh, talk to you later."

Before he could answer, Sango made it to her bedroom and slammed the door shut, closing her eyes and leaning back against the door in relief. _Phew_…

She opened her eyes and blinked at what was in front of her.

Then blinked again.

And then she realized just what she was seeing and let out a shriek.

There was someone in her room.

* * *

**AN: **Confusing so far? Don't worry, I'll explain more next chapter, especially regarding Inuyasha and Miroku. And yes, Kagome will be appearing next chapter.


	2. Appointing a Guardian

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: **Thank you, everyone, for the reviews. Especially the longer ones. Seriously, they were wonderful to read… made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. But anyway, enough fluffiness. On with the story…

**ABOVE AND BEYOND**

_Chapter Two: _Appointing a Guardian

* * *

There was someone in her room. 

The stranger lifted his head, and Sango's scream died in her throat as a pair of dark blue eyes stared at her, free of fault, completely guileless. As if he wasn't standing in the bedroom of a girl he didn't know.

"Sango?" Her father's voice echoed from the living room above the distant sound of the television. "Is everything all right in there?"

Great. Her father was the one person who could make everything worse.

"No, everything's fine," she yelled, still not taking her eyes off of the intruder. "I just stubbed my toe, that's all."

He made a reply, but Sango didn't hear it, her attention instantly drawn back to the man in her room. He stared back, actually having the gall to smile widely at her and revealing a set of even white teeth. And as she watched him, it suddenly hit her that this guy was looking through her underwear drawer.

For a moment, she just gaped at him. Someone she had never once met in her life was _looking through her underwear drawer!_

"Pervert!" she hissed, loud enough so that he could hear her, but soft so as her father or Kohaku wouldn't hear. She yanked her sneaker from her feet and threw it as hard as she possibly could. It hit him, giving a loud _thunk _as it did so. He stumbled backward, clutching his head, and Sango smirked, pleased to see that the smile had dropped from his face.

"Ow…" He glanced up at her, still rubbing his head where she'd nailed him. "What was that for?"

It was time to pound this sucker. She pulled off her other shoe, and a twinge of satisfaction shot through her as he raised his hands up in surrender.

"No!" he protested, panic laced in his voice. "Don't do it!"

"Then tell me who you are and why you're here," she said, narrowing her eyes and tightening her grip on the sneaker in her best attempt to look intimidating. Apparently, it worked, because he nodded.

"Okay, I will," he gave in, his gaze on the deadly sneaker the entire time. "Just… just drop the shoe, okay?" She didn't move. "Please," he added politely.

_Man, he almost looks afraid, _she realized.

Well, good. More power to her.

"I won't drop it until you tell me who you are," she told him forcefully. She was surprised at how well she was handling this. The guy was completely under her control.

"Fine, fine. I'll talk." His hands lowered in resignation, as if he were a criminal caught for his evil deeds.

"And close the drawer!" she snapped, motioning toward her underwear drawer. He complied, and Sango felt a slight blush dash across her cheeks as he raised an appreciative eyebrow at the drawer's contents before closing it.

"Now talk," she ordered. The shoe was still raised. "Who are you?"

He sat down on the bed and began to pet Kirara. Sango scowled. Of all the nerve! What was _with _this guy?! He somehow had sneaked into her room, had looked through her underwear drawer, and was now sitting on her bed petting her cat as if he lived there! And Kirara wasn't even biting him! She was purring, for goodness sake!

Sango examined him untrustingly. He looked to be fairly tall, about eighteen or nineteen, with shoulder-length black hair that was pulled back into a short ponytail at the nape of his neck. He was dressed in odd robes, and there was an equally strange-looking staff leaning against the wall that could only belong to him.

The guy was most likely crazy, she surmised.

"Come on, talk," she growled, in her best scary voice. She ended up sounding as if she were part of the Mafia.

He glanced up from petting Kirara, and she noticed how very blue his eyes were. Very, very blue.

But he was still most likely crazy.

"My name's Miroku," he said, giving her another one of his innocent smiles. She didn't buy it. "I'm a monk. And," he paused, "your guardian angel."

Silence.

Okay, he wasn't possibly insane. He _was _insane.

The guy—Miroku or whatever—kept on petting Kirara and smiling at her as if he hadn't said something completely outrageous and worthy to put him locked away in a loony bin.

"So," Sango said finally, "how did you escape?"

"What?" His face scrunched up quizzically. A good actor. Or maybe just a psycho.

"Ha!" She snorted. "What do you _think _I'm talking about? The asylum! Don't they stuff you crazies up in straitjackets or something?"

His eyebrows furrowed. "I'm not crazy," he said. Sango was tempted to hit him again with her shoe. Maybe that would knock a little sense into this weirdo. "I was telling the truth."

"That you're 'my guardian angel'?" she said, her tone sarcastic. "I hope you realize why I find that just a little bit difficult to believe."

"Why is it so hard to believe?" he asked evenly.

"Maybe because angels don't exist," she suggested. "And if they did, I highly doubt they would be in the form of badly-dressed perverts like _you_."

Miroku momentarily stopped petting Kirara. "Pervert?" he echoed with a sigh. "Are you _still _holding this morning against me? I don't see what is such a big deal about a little touch."

For a reason she couldn't explain, Sango began to feel her stomach tighten. What did he mean, this morning? She meant tonight, just a few moments ago when she'd caught him looking through her underwear drawer…

"What do you mean?" she asked. Her hold on the sneaker wavered slightly. "I've only met you a minute ago. I didn't even know you this morning."

He frowned. "Oh. I thought you meant—" He stopped, as if he thought better about speaking. "Well, never mind then."

_Never mind then? _She didn't like his tone… as if he knew something that she didn't. And there was something about his words than unnerved her, too. What had he meant?

"Tell me," she said, the Mafia Growl coming back full-force. "Or you know what happens." She raised the shoe for emphasis.

"You know, you're a lot more innocent than you look," he observed. "I never pinpointed you as a slightly unstable shoe-thrower."

Ooh, he deserved a hit for that. Sango held back, though. This was her only shoe left; the only ammunition to make him speak. "You're avoiding the question," she said evenly. "And if you don't watch it, this 'slightly unstable shoe-thrower' will hit _you_. So quit shirking around the topic and answer my question."

"Promise you won't hit me?"

"Depends," she replied without missing a beat.

He shrugged. "Good enough for me." He stopped and looked up as if thinking. "What was the question again? Oh, yes. Well, as I said, I'm a guardian angel of sorts and I had to pick someone to look after. And I saw you at your school and thought you would be perfect, but I also… well, it was a bit important to me that the person I guard has a nice ass, you know? Maybe you don't know. But, anyway, I was just giving it a quick feel to test it. And, I have to say, you've passed with flying colors."

She chose to ignore the ridiculous babbling about the guardian angel crap, instead focusing on what he'd said about copping a feel—or, as he put it, "testing out" her butt. She thought about that morning, when she could have sworn someone had whispered in her ear and touched her…

"That can't be," she said with a shake of her head. "There was no one there."

"Of course there was," he responded cheerfully. "How else would someone touch you?"

"You're crazy," she accused. "You probably saw me before and decided to climb up the fire escape and sneak into my window to freak me out."

"Now, Sango—" he began.

"Oh my god, you're a stalker!" she cut in, her eyes wide and her hand wrapping itself more tightly against her shoe. "How do you know my name?"

He pointed at the desk. "It was on your writings over there. It's a very pretty name."

"Thank y—" She stopped abruptly as she realized what she was saying. "I don't have to thank _you_. You're insane."

"I'm not insane! Look, would you just let me explain?"

"Explain how you climbed through my window and then started pawing through my underwear drawer?" she put in snippily.

"I couldn't have gone through the window," Miroku said. "It's rusted shut."

He was right, it _was _rusted shut. She remembered trying to open it earlier that evening to let in some breeze. But how else could he have gotten in? She was sure she would have seen him had he gone in through any other windows. He had to have broken it open somehow. That was the only explanation for it.

Sango walked over to where the window was and began to yank on it desperately. She was strong; it had to give way. It should have been simple, had someone just opened it. But to her annoyance and dismay, Miroku proved to be right. It was clear that he hadn't used the window.

"Then…" She turned from the window to look back at him. "How did you get in here if you didn't climb through the window?"

"Oh, that's simple," he replied smoothly. "I just teleported."

She burst into peals of laughter, and Miroku looked a bit offended. "What?"

"So you're telling me that in addition to your occupation of a guardian angel, you're a magician? What else do you do, run a circus? Substitute for the tooth fairy on weekends? Tell me, I'm curious."

"I sense some sarcasm," he told her. He almost sounded exasperated.

"No, really?" she snorted. "For a second, I thought I believed you."

"If I teleport for you, will you let me explain?" he asked.

The poor, poor guy, actually believing he could teleport. What was next, flying? Telekinesis? "Sure," she replied, folding her arms and leaning against the window. This would be amusing, at the very least. "Go right ahead and prove me wrong."

He gave her a large smile, and then closed his eyes. Sango almost burst out laughing again as nothing happened. What a moron. "All right now," she began, uncrossing her arms and walking over to where he sat, "now that you're attempted to prove me wrong, you can leave n—" She stopped abruptly as Miroku vanished.

There was no other word for it. He just disappeared. One second he was there, the other he was gone. There no smoke, no poof, nothing.

"Oh… my… god," she breathed. She leant forward to examine the bed on which he'd just been sitting, setting her hand on the quilt. It was still warm from where he'd just been sitting. "Kirara, tell me that did not just happen."

"You talk to your cat?" a teasing voice said from behind her. "Well, that's one cute thing about you."

Something began to caress her bottom, and she quickly realized it was a hand. _His _hand, she was sure. She whirled around and slapped him as hard as she could. "You _pervert!_" she roared. "Watch where you put that thing!"

Miroku laughed sheepishly as he rubbed his swelling cheek. "I'm sorry, it was just such a perfect moment."

Sango's hand dropped as she stared at him. He had just disappeared completely from her room, and now, somehow, he was behind her again.

Could what he'd been saying been true all along? That he _was _some type of guardian angel…?

_No way. There's just no way._

"_Now _will you listen to me?" he asked. "After all, you promised."

Sango admitted defeat. She'd been proven wrong, and she was ready to listen to his explanation, crazy or not. She sat down on the bed. "All right," she agreed. "Explain."

He began to sit down on the bed beside her, but at her warning glare backed off and remained standing instead. "Okay," he laughed. "Sorry about that. Now, where do I start…?"

"Maybe about this guardian angel stuff," Sango supplied. "As in where you started before."

"Right." He smiled. "I'm not really a guardian angel, I'm actually something you'd call a Beyond."

"What's a Beyond?" she asked automatically.

"A Beyond is a spiritual fighter, if you will. I died a long time ago—about five hundred years ago, according to Inuyasha—but I didn't die… well, I didn't die properly, you could say." He raised his right hand. It was clothed with a gauntlet, a rosary wrapped around it. "In my right hand is a hole. A _kazaana_. My grandfather was cursed with it, as well as my father, and now me. It sucks up everything in its path, and it eventually sucked up me. This is a very… _unusual _method of death, you could say, and so the afterlife agreed I could have a second chance. Well, sort of. You see, there are very few Beyonds in the world today. Souls will apply to the duty of fixing errors that humankind cannot, such as poltergeists, rampant demons, et cetera. Being accepted, however, takes a long time. Some souls end up waiting thousands of years. I had to wait about five hundred, although it didn't seem like that to me."

Miroku paused for a breath of air, and Sango's head swarmed as she attempted to take this all in.

"I applied to be a Beyond for one reason," he continued. "There is a problem, one that has existed for many years. A hanyou by the name of Naraku. Five hundred and fifty years ago, he was born and has only grown in power since. He is the reason for this hellhole in my hand. His power has increased so rapidly that none have ever been able to defeat him—although one Beyond, known as Kikyo, nearly stopped him. She had been another wronged by Naraku, and as she was one of the most powerful miko to have every existed, she was almost immediately accepted as a Beyond. She managed to weaken Naraku considerably—his hellish powers have decreased so that he can only now shape shift. But Kikyo died in the struggle, and as time progresses, Naraku grows stronger. As he has not made himself known, however, we don't know the extent to which his powers have grown. That's why Inuyasha—another Beyond, that is—and I have been assigned to find him and kill him."

"Wait a second," Sango cut in. "Even if this was true—and I'm still not sure I believe it—what do I have to do with this? This doesn't sound like you're my guardian angel or whatever to me."

"I'm getting to that," he said patiently. "You see, there's only one rule that goes along with a Beyond. The time that you spend as one doing your task, you must help out a human being in one form or another. Guide them, more like. So in essence I could be considered a guardian angel. When I saw you this morning, I chose you to be the person I would guard over."

Sango would have thought up a witty reply, but her brain was still struggling to process everything he'd said. "Hold on," she said uncertainly. "If I do believe you—and that's still a very small maybe—then what happens after you kill this demon? Will you leave me alone?"

"Well, this all depends on what happens. If I do find Naraku and he manages to kill me—as much as he can, anyway, seeing as I'm already dead—then I will return to the afterlife. If I manage to kill him, I am rewarded for my efforts and I will be restored of life."

Sango closed her eyes, her head swarming. Beyonds, demons, mikos… it was a grand scale above anything she'd ever heard of before. And Sango knew that it was something so above and beyond everything that she would be unable to take it. Her mother's death still haunted her. How could she manage to get through this?

"No," she murmured.

"What's that?" Miroku asked. "No what?"

"No," she said again, shaking her head. "I can't deal with this. My life's bad enough as it is. I don't want Beyonds and demons and all that. I want to be _normal_, okay? Just… just leave me alone. Find someone else to guard over."

He frowned. "But I've chosen you."

"Well, choose somebody else!" she shouted angrily. "You have no right to just barge into my life!"

He opened his mouth as if to reply, his smile now gone from his face, but he stopped as there was a knock on the door. "Sis?" Kohaku's muffled voice could be heard through the door, as well as the obnoxious tune of his Gameboy game.

Oh, no, not her brother. She couldn't let him see Miroku. He would freak out and tell her father that there was a boy in her room, and that could only result in trouble. Sango jumped off her bed and began to run toward the door as it started to open. "Just a minute!" she called, but it was too late. Kohaku had opened the door.

"I can explain!" she yelled hastily as Kohaku stepped into the room. "Just don't tell Dad—"

"Explain what?" he asked in confusion. "What's going on?"

Sango glanced back at were Miroku had been standing only seconds before, but he was now gone, no trace of him remaining. He must have teleported again.

"What, sis?" Kohaku prompted again.

"Nothing," she said, a bit dazedly. "Nothing at all…"

* * *

Sango set her tray down at the lunchroom and began to pick half-heartedly at her food. She was not in the best mood; her pre-calculus teacher hadn't exactly been pleased that she hadn't done her homework. She would have, if only she could have focused, but her mind had still been so troubled by what Miroku had told her that she hadn't been able to concentrate on anything, let alone math of that level. 

_I wonder if he's gone for good, _she found herself thinking as she fiddled with her chopsticks. He'd never given her a definite answer on whether he was staying with her or not, but Sango was pretty sure it was the latter. Why else would he have left otherwise?

She could only hope that he'd gone. Her life would be way too complicated with him there.

But, still… she wondered if he would defeat that demon and live. If he did, would she see him again? Not that she wanted to… the guy was a complete pervert. Sango pitied the girl he was going to be watching over.

"Hey."

Sango glanced up from her tray of unappetizing food to see a girl standing by her table. "Mind if I sit with you?" the girl asked politely, pointing the hand that wasn't holding a tray at an open chair.

"Sure," Sango mumbled, feeling slightly embarrassed. She probably looked so pathetic, sitting all alone at a table in the corner. The girl was obviously only sitting with her out of pity.

"I'm Kagome," the girl said with a bright smile. "You're in my history class, aren't you?"

To tell the truth, Sango had no idea. "Uh, I think so," she replied stupidly, sincerely hoping that she was. "I'm Sango."

"Nice to meet you," Kagome offered. "This is your first year here, right? I don't remember seeing you last year."

Sango nodded. "I just moved here," she explained. She didn't say, _We moved here because we have no money. Because my mother's dead and my father spent all of our money to save her, but in the end we couldn't._

She didn't want Kagome to pity her anymore than she already did.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?" she asked. "Or is it just you?"

She didn't even look as if she were trying to make small talk. She actually looked interested. "I have a little brother named Kohaku," Sango answered, picking up her chopsticks and beginning to eat again. "He's eleven and a complete brat."

Kagome laughed. "I have a little brother too. He's eight, though. And he's a complete brat, too."

Strangely enough, Sango began to feel almost as if she were relaxing in Kagome's company. She even made Kagome laugh a few times. It was as if she were any other girl who had friends and a normal family. A girl that didn't have a weird monk sneaking into her room and claiming to be her guardian angel.

She could definitely get used to this.

* * *

Okay, so the day hadn't been as bad as Sango had previously thought. Sure, her language teacher had shouted at her for a completely inane reason, and her locker had gotten jammed again, and she was stuck sitting behind an extremely foul-smelling guy in physics class, but compared to yesterday, it really wasn't all that bad. 

She swung her backpack over her shoulder as she exited the building. It was a lot heavier than yesterday; almost all of their teachers had assigned her homework. Her shoulders were beginning to cramp. With a sigh, Sango set her backpack down on the concrete steps just outside of the building to give her aching muscles a quick rest.

"Need me to carry that for you?"

Sango's eyes widened as she heard the voice. It was smooth and confident, so self-assured it was almost aggravating.

She knew only one person with a voice like that.

She turned and gave Miroku the fiercest glare she could muster. "_You_…"

He grinned.

* * *

**AN: **I hope that chapter cleared a few things up for those of you who were confused. There's still a bit of explaining to do for the future, but most of it was done in this chapter. Sorry about how dialogue-heavy it was, but I couldn't find much of a way around it, so I just kept in the explaining that needed to be done without trying to overdo it. And, of course, I had to add in some Miroku-esque lines. 

Please review!


	3. Ground Rules

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: **Yay! Reviews! I _looove _reviews. I thrive off them. (In case you hadn't noticed, that is a bit of a hint for reviews ). Someone asked if I was going to be writing a lemon in the future. That would be a no. Some fluff, yes, but no lemon. And as proof of that, I've got the beginnings of fluff in this chapter. And yes, Taishoku Kurayami, I'm a Kikyo fan. Kikyo just plain rules, in my humble opinion.

**ABOVE AND BEYOND**

**Chapter Three: **_Ground Rules_

* * *

"You don't look too happy to see me," Miroku noted in his usual cheerful tone. "Why on earth could that be?"

The pathetic thing was that he didn't even sound sarcastic.

Sango glanced nervously around the school. She'd left the school late, luckily; after all, she'd had to get the fiasco with her locker cleaned up. But there were still quite a bit of people still milling around school grounds, and nearly all of them were staring at the oddly-dressed teenager in front of them.

And then their eyes would slide up to the girl who he was talking to.

Her.

Her cheeks heated up at the raised eyebrows and snorts of laughter. She could only thank the Lord that most people were in a hurry to leave school and wouldn't bother to stick around. But for those who had, she was sure she'd made a first impression. After all, didn't people say someone could be judged by the type of people they associated themselves with?

_This isn't funny anymore, _she thought furiously. _It never was funny in the first place! I told him to leave!_

And yet there he was.

She swung her bag over her shoulder and strode past Miroku as if he didn't exist, though her heart was beating unnaturally fast and her head was down so that she wouldn't have to look at everyone else. She prayed that Miroku took the hint and left her alone.

"Hey, where are you going?" he asked, hurrying in stride behind her, his sandals slapping lightly against the sidewalk. The rings on his staff began to clash together, and Sango began to walk even more quickly, though he was easily keeping pace with her. Was he _trying _to embarrass her?

"Leave me alone," she hissed under her breath. "I _told _you to go away and find someone else to do your little freak-show on."

"Well, you're in an awfully bad mood," he noted.

"What an observation," she marveled sarcastically.

"Indeed."

Arrggh! The guy was completely infuriating! She was tempted to give him a smack on the head, but that would be revealing that she actually knew this wackjob. So she did what she'd done earlier and continued ignoring him. Which he obviously wasn't picking up on. If he was, he wasn't letting it get to him, that much was clear.

"So, are you heading home now?"

By this point, Sango was relieved to see that she was at the end of the street corner, finally out of earshot for all the students still at the school. She hoped sincerely that by this point, they'd lost interest. After all, this was Tokyo, one of the largest cities in the world. Freaks were all over the place here. Although a teenage guy dressed in monk's clothing probably was a first for them.

She whirled on him, ponytail flipping into her eyes. "It doesn't matter where I'm headed!" she shouted. "Because you are not going to be accompanying me, understand?!"

"Well, that's silly," he said with a laugh. "Of course I'm going to be accompanying you, Sango. As your guardian angel, that's what I'm supposed to do. Clearly you're very uninformed when it comes to matters such as these."

She clenched her hands at her sides, willing herself not to use them for evil purposes—such as, oh say… strangling him. She just barely managed not to. "Will you _stop _calling me your guardian angel?" she said irritably. "Because as I told you last night, I don't want all this weird crap to involve me in any way. My life is hard enough right now."

"My dear Sango," he said with a heavy sigh (though how he still managed to stay smiling through such a heavy sigh, she wasn't quite sure), "that is precisely what I am here for. To guide you and make your life easier."

Now Sango could see that other civilians were staring at her: the girl with the barely held temper and the oddly-dressed boy who wouldn't stop smiling for a second. She couldn't handle this right now; her anger was festering up to the point where it would explode at any given moment.

"Look," she said, rubbing her temple as a headache began to form, "if you want to do me a favor, then leave me alone for a little while, okay? I'll deal with you when I'm not as angry. Because right now I think I want to kill you."

From the slight drop in his smile, it seemed he realized that she wasn't kidding. "All right," he agreed. "I'll go see Inuyasha or something, I suppose. But don't you worry, because I'll be back, okay?" He winked.

Very funny.

"Oh, I'll try not to," she mumbled under her breath as he vanished in thin air. Several people stopped and gaped, and Sango sighed. _He just had to do that, didn't he_…_ I guess I did deserve that one, though, for trying to so hard to get rid of him._

"Good trick, huh?" she commented to the still-gaping passersby. "He does that one all the time."

They began to relax, and one person even clapped. Sango rolled her eyes and continued on her walk, making a mental note to stop by Kohaku's middle school. Thanks to Miroku, she was a bit late, so she picked up her pace.

"Stupid idiot," she muttered under her breath. "Him and that stupid, _stupid _smile…" She kicked a stone in frustration. "Stupid, stupid, stupid..."

"What's stupid?"

"Gah!" Sango nearly jumped out of her skin until she saw that she'd somehow walked to the middle school building and Kohaku now stood in front of her. "Geez, don't scare me like that!" she complained. "You nearly gave me a heart attack."

"You're too fit to get a heart attack, sis," he put in.

Well, that was true.

"What's stupid?" he asked again. "'Cause you didn't look too happy."

Sango sighed. Once again, Miroku had screwed her over; she couldn't tell Kohaku about him, or else the boy would think she was a nutcase. "Nothing," she said lightly. "Just some of my homework, that's all."

"Oh."

"Watch out!"

The warning had come far too late. A football sailed through the air and landed squarely on Kohaku's head. The boy winced as the football bounced off and landed on the sidewalk beside them. Sango scowled—the football had sailed smoothly through the air in perfect spirals; whoever had thrown it had obviously known where it was going, so there was no chance that it had "accidentally" hit her brother.

A boy who looked to be about a year or two older than Kohaku stood on the football field with a few other boys. He was heavy-set, not so much fat as he was pudgy, with a large mop of dark hair. And he was smiling. Smiling at the fact that her brother had just been hit with the ball _he'd _thrown.

"Ah, man, sorry about that," he apologized. His tone was completely insincere.

"It's okay," Kohaku mumbled, staring at the ground.

Sango picked up the football that was still wobbling around the sidewalk at her feet. "Is this yours?" she asked in a falsely pleasant voice. Her fingers were turning white on the football; if she kept squeezing it so hard, it would break in no time.

The boy smiled. "Why don't you bring it over here so I can see your pretty face closer?" he offered.

Sango almost gagged. A prepubescent boy was hitting on her! What was the world coming to?

"No, I'm good," she responded, then hauled off and threw the football. It flew through the air in a precise arc, until it hit the boy square on the head. His friends laughed as he clutched his head, letting out a whine of pain.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she apologized, not sounding sorry at all. "Did I hit you?"

"Bitch," he moaned.

"Come on, Kohaku," she muttered, shooting the boy one last glare (though he was so busy pissing and moaning she doubted he noticed) before stalking off, grabbing Kohaku's arm as she did so. He watched her silently, amber eyes wide.

"Who was that?" she asked him when they were far from the football field. "That boy."

"Yukio Oko," Kohaku said with a frown. "He's an eighth grader."

"So he's two years older than you?" she asked. "He's thirteen?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"Yukio, huh?" she repeated, more to herself than Kohaku. "So why did he hit you?"

"Sis, it's not like he meant—" Kohaku began, but Sango cut him off.

"Don't even _begin _to make excuses for that lowlife," she hissed. "He _hit _you, Kohaku! And on purpose! Why would he do that?"

"He didn't mean to, sis," he insisted again, but he wouldn't look Sango in the eyes.

_A bully, I'll bet_… _and Kohaku's afraid to say something to me because he thinks I'll interfere and make things worse, is that it?_

She sighed, looking at Kohaku's downcast face. If he didn't want her to interfere, then she wouldn't, no matter how much it killed her. She wouldn't put him in such a position.

_But when the time comes, Kohaku... you damn well better kick that boy's ass._

* * *

Sango adjusted the strap around her shoulder as she pushed the key into the lock. After a minute of jimmying it around—the lock was a bit cheap—she heard a _click_, and pushed open the door.

She frowned as she heard the sounds of the TV coming from the living from. Her father didn't wasn't due home for another few hours at the earliest, and she was almost positive the television hadn't been on this morning.

"Sis, what are you standing in the door for? Hurry it up."

Sango moved through the doorway to let Kohaku pass. The first thing that caught her eye was the TV; on it appeared to be several thin, blonde models wearing nothing but undergarments. And sitting on the couch facing said models was none other than a boy with dark hair pulled into a short ponytail at the nape of his neck.

_Oh, dear Lord._

As Kohaku walked through the door, Sango did the first thing that came to her mind and tackled him to the ground. She could _not _let him see Miroku, no matter what.

"Mmrmph!" Kohaku muttered, his mouth pinned to the orange carpet.

The monk in question turned at the loud thump that had occurred when Sango had tackled Kohaku. He raised a questioning eyebrow at her, looking slightly amused.

She gave him a look of seething fury. "Go," she mouthed, barely able to stop herself from running over and beating him until he was a mangled corpse. She pointed to her room, feeling a bit like an angry mother who had just caught her son stealing from the cookie jar. Miroku nodded, disappearing, and Sango stood up, getting off of Kohaku, who was still struggling underneath her grasp.

"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded when she released him. His face was red from where it had been shoved into the orange carpet. "You almost suffocated me!"

"Sorry!" she apologized with a sheepish laugh. "One of my clumsy moments, I guess. I tripped."

Kohaku muttered something under his breath that sounded distinctly like, "psycho," but Sango let it go. She _had _been acting like a crazy person, after all. Not that it was her fault or anything. If that stupid pervert hadn't showed up...

Which reminded her. That pervert was waiting for her in her room. And he was going to get the scolding of a lifetime, that was for sure.

Once she took care of Kohaku, that was.

"Hey, Kohaku," Sango said, turning to the still-grumbling boy. "You know what you could do for me that would make me love you even more than I already do? Which is a lot," she added quickly.

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "What?"

She pulled out a few hundred yen from her pocket and stuffed it into his hand. "Why don't you buy Kirara some cat food?" she suggested, her tight face implying it was more of an order than a request.

He glanced down at the wad of bills. "But sis, this is more than I would need to buy cat food."

"Then go buy yourself some candy or something, you're too skinny anyway." She grabbed his shoulders and steered him toward the door.

"But Kirara doesn't need cat food!" he tried again. "She has plenty left."

"Just go!" she snapped, pushing him out the door. She flashed him a quick (though rather fake) smile. "Have fun," she commented in a falsely cheery voice before slamming the door in his face.

She listened intently against the door until she heard the sound of feet slapping against the floor. Good; he was leaving.

Now for the real problem.

"Miroku, get your ass over here now!" she yelled. She didn't normally feel comfortable cursing, but there was something about that monk that made her want to spit out a maelstrom of foul words.

After a minute, Miroku emerged from her room, smiling pleasantly. "Why, hello, Sango." He took in her scowl with a slight frown of his own. "You shouldn't scowl like that all of the time. I'm sure you have a much prettier smile."

As if she would ever smile at _him_.

"Shut up," she mumbled. "Why are you here?"

"Maybe you haven't grasped the concept of a Beyond before," he said. "You see, as I am now your guardian angel, I am to stay with you and guide you through your turmoil—"

"I wasn't talking about that," she interrupted. Her headache was quickly beginning to return. "I _mean_, I told you to visit me later. I thought you were visiting Inuyaga."

"Inuyasha," he corrected automatically.

"Whatever."

"Well, I was," he said, "but he wasn't in the best mood, you see. The girl he guards over was a bit angry with him."

"If he's anything like you, then I can understand why," she said, feeling a bit of sympathy toward the girl stuck in her position.

He just grinned. It was, Sango realized, a grin that was beginning to piss her off.

"So, I'm guessing you're not going to leave?" she asked.

"Why would I leave?" Miroku asked levelly. "I'm perfectly content with you."

That was the problem.

Why was he so focused on staying with her? One ass was another to him—couldn't he just find another girl to follow, one who wouldn't continually slap him and be so mean to him? She was starting to understand that Miroku liked things the hard way.

If that was the case, two could play at that game. She'd let him be her "guardian angel" for now. But that didn't mean she would make it easy for him.

"All right," she gave in. "I'll let you stay. _But_," she added quickly, before Miroku could get any ideas, "I have a few ground rules to lay down first."

"Ground rules?" he repeated, his smile faltering slightly.

"Yes."

"I think we should go sit down," he suggested calmly. "I have a feeling this will take a while."

He plopped down on the couch, and Sango followed suit, making sure to sit as far away from him as humanly possible. "Now," she began, "first off." She held out her hands to count. "If you're going to be my guardian angel, that means no revealing yourself to my family. I don't want to have to explain this to them, or my dad may think I'm going insane." _And Kohaku might follow your influence and become a pervert like you, _she thought, but didn't add that in.

"Number two," she continued, "when you're following me around like the stalker you are, don't show yourself. If that means you have to use one of your psychic powers or whatever to make yourself invisible, then fine. If you can't do that, then don't follow me. People were staring at me badly enough today. I'm going to be a walking circus if I continue to have a twenty-year-old monk following me everywhere."

"Nineteen," he corrected.

"Thirdly," she went on, ignoring him, "no groping. Or anything perverted."

He didn't say anything. That was odd; she'd thought he would put up more of a fight against such a rule.

"Miroku? Are you listening?"

He was staring at the TV screen, his eyes becoming glassy. Sango blushed as she realized the TV set was still on the channel which contained women prancing about in their scanty underwear. She grabbed the remote and shut it off quickly.

She cleared her throat. "_Thirdly_," she said again, loudly. "_No _groping or anything perverted."

"What?"

A glare. "You heard me."

He sighed. "Normally, I wouldn't agree to such rules, but for you, my dear Sango, I will try."

_My dear Sango?_

What was he _on_?

And why did she blush when he said that? This was stupid! She shouldn't blush over the pervert's dumb comments!

She heard the sound of the doorknob twisting. "Shoot!" she muttered. She hadn't expected Kohaku would be back early, but then again, the grocery store was only a block away. "Go!" she murmured quickly. "My brother can't see you!"

He winked at her. "I'll be in your room."

Then he vanished.

The door burst open and Kohaku came in with a bag of cat food in his right hand. "Were you talking to someone?" he asked. "I thought I heard voices."

"Nope, nope, just your imagination," she said hastily. "So, uh, I'll be in my room then. Bye!"

She floundered off quickly to her room, locking the door behind her. She felt a bit bad about being so secretive with Kohaku, but he really couldn't know about Miroku. The results would be disastrous.

She just wished the boy wasn't so damn perceptive. At this rate, her secret would leak in a matter of days.

Miroku was flipping through an old album, lazing on her bed. Man, did he get around quickly. He could have only been in her room for thirty seconds at the most, but already he'd pulled out a photo album.

She sat down on her desk chair and watched him silently, noticing the way his eyes would dance with mirth when he looked at certain photos and how he smiled somewhat crookedly. She was so intent on watching him that she was startled when he looked up at her and spoke.

"You were a really cute kid."

"Oh." Sango blushed and looked down as she realized she'd been caught staring at him. "Uh… thanks…"

"Who's that?" he asked, pointing to someone in a photo. "That woman there."

Sango moved from the chair and tentively sat beside him to take a look at the picture.

Her stomach dropped as she saw the picture he was pointing to.

In it, a six-year-old Sango was holding the hand of a pretty woman of thirty. Sango's remaining hand was holding a large cone of strawberry ice cream that was already halfway melted, trickling down her hands in goopy, pink rivulets. Her face was one of pure disgust, but the woman's eyes were shining and her mouth was open wide in laughter.

Sango had had that same picture framed on her dresser once. And then, when her mother had died, she'd gotten furious and ripped the photo to shreds, hating that smiling face, beautiful and happy. The face of an angel. A face that she would never see again.

"Oh…"

Miroku looked up at her curiously. "Oh, what?" 

"It's…" She swallowed, trying to draw her gaze away from the picture, but finding herself unable to. "It's just a picture of me and my mother. We… were at the boardwalk, and she bought me strawberry ice-cream because it was my favorite." She pushed the photo album away. "It's a stupid picture, anyway. We weren't even posing when my father took it."

"That's what makes it special."

She blinked. "What?"

Miroku shrugged. "I'm not quite accumulated with these 'photograph' things quite yet—though Inuyasha has told me about them—but it seems to me that it is full of people smiling when they don't want to. The smiles are false. But these are true." He smiled. "That's why it's special."

She had never thought of it like that. "I guess…"

Somehow Miroku seemed a lot more tolerable than he had a few moments ago.

* * *

Her father arrived home at seven. Sango didn't have to look at his face to see that he was exhausted; his slumped form was a dead giveaway.

"Hey, Dad," she greeted as she pulled out a few cookies from the kitchen. Miroku had left a little while ago, after she had started her homework.

"Hi, honey," her father said tiredly. "How was your day?"

"Good, I guess," she replied with a shrug. "What about you?"

"Exhausted," he responded predictably. "Where's the remote?"

"On the cushion," she said without thinking. Her father reached out and grabbed it, and then Sango remembered—

"No, Dad, don't!" she yelled.

Too late.

Her father clicked on the television, his eyes widening from beneath his glasses.

"Why are there nude women on the TV?"

_Whoops..._

* * *

**AN: **Why does Sango's dad have glasses? Beats me. Maybe he just has glasses because in the actual TV series, he did have impaired vision only there were no such things as glasses during the Sengoku Jidai. Yeah, that's it…


	4. A Beginning to Companionship

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Yep, I'm back with another chapter. And for all those wondering, I _will _get into the plot soon, I swear. I'm just trying to get Miroku and Sango at a more comfortable level with each other, since right now it's basically grope, slap, antagonize. So, this chapter is sort of fluff… ahem, I mean, _characterization_. Yes, that's it.

**ABOVE AND BEYOND**

**Chapter Four: **_A Beginning to Companionship_

* * *

_Blue._

That was the first thing Sango thought when she woke up. Yes… blue… a mosaic of different colored blues, ranging from the cloudy gray of an impending storm, to a deep violet, thick and lush.

The blue was very pretty, she decided. It was a shade unlike any she'd ever seen before.

"Good morning."

_So the blue talks, _she thought, a bit hazily. It took her a moment to comprehend the meaning of that thought, and when she finally did, she bolted upright in her bed, colliding heads with the person who had spoken. She let out a hiss of pain, bringing her hand up to her forehead.

"Miroku…" she muttered, wincing at the pounding ache of her head. "I thought this was in our ground rules."

The monk had toppled to the ground when their heads had banged together, but he still looked as awake as ever. "No, actually," he put in. "Waking you up wasn't on our ground rules."

"You weren't waking me up!" she accused. "You were watching me sleep!"

"What's wrong with that?"

"It's…" Why couldn't she come up with a reason? It _was _wrong, and weird, and… "It's wrong because… because it's creepy," she finished lamely. "So don't do it, okay?"

He shrugged. "Sure. But I heard your father knock on the door a minute ago, so I figured I would try waking you up." He frowned. "You don't wake very easily."

It was only then that she noticed a light hand-print on his face. _Must've slapped him in my sleep… _

"Sorry," she mumbled in apology. "I, uh… didn't mean to hit you or anything."

He shrugged, brushing it off. "It's fine."

She pulled her hand away from where she had been rubbing her throbbing head and stood. She glanced at Miroku, who was still standing there, watching her. "I have to get dressed," she said, a silent inquiry to leave.

Inquiry? Command was more like it.

"Okay."

He didn't move.

"I meant, _leave_," she explained, pointing toward the door.

"But Sango," he protested, "Your father will see me. And it was part of our agreement that I don't reveal myself to your dad, remember? Also, teleporting this early in the morning wouldn't be wise… what if I need to do it later on?"

"What, so you can only teleport once a day?" she asked him in confusion.

He shook his head. "No, I can do it as many times as I want depending on how much energy I have. And teleporting takes a lot of energy."

She lowered her eyes at him suspiciously. "Does it now?"

"Oh, yes," he replied seriously. "And what if I find a clue to Naraku's hideout and must rush over there immediately? I would need my energy."

Sango wasn't quite buying it, but she knew there was no sense in arguing with someone as persistent as him. "All right," she replied grudgingly. "But go into the closet so you can't see me."

"I don't know, Sango," he said, frowning. "I mean, I _am _your Beyond now, so if anything happened to you…"

"Just go!" Yanking his sleeve, she shoved him into the closet, then pushed a chair against it so she could be sure he wasn't peeking. After examining it closer, she determined that it was impossible for Miroku to look without her noticing. Satisfied, she turned back and rummaged through her drawers to find her school uniform.

"Stupid uniform…" she muttered as she pulled off her shirt, revealing her flimsy tank top that lay beneath it. She had felt uncomfortable enough as it was with her uniform on when she went to school alone… now she was going to have Miroku following her around wearing that…

_I should have asked for a bigger size, _she thought with a sigh. Well, it was too late to do anything now.

She rummaged through her drawer, pulling out a mismatched pair of undergarments and throwing them on the bed. She was just about to pull her tank top above her head when she heard a loud thump. Panicking, she whirled around, holding up her hands to her chest in embarrassment, even though her chest was covered by the tank top, skimpy as it was.

Miroku was crouching in the little space under her desk where her chair usually went, rubbing his head in pain. She glanced from the closet, to Miroku, then to the closet and back again.

"Miroku…" she said slowly.

He gave her his holiest, most innocent look, blinking his wide eyes and smiling serenely.

_Oh, please. _

She refrained from saying anything until she had pulled on a bigger shirt—her tank top may have covered her chest, but it still wasn't something she wanted that lecherous monk to see her in. As soon as she had done that, she turned back to him. He was still giving her that I'm-purer-than-water look. She wasn't buying it.

"May I ask you something, Miroku?" she asked, her voice syrupy sweet.

"Uh… sure," he replied. He was nervous, she could tell. Good. He _should _have been.

"Why is it," she began, smiling brightly, "that you are crouching under my desk when I specifically told you to stay in my closet?"

"Uh…"

"And _how _is it, exactly, you managed to do so, considering you claimed that you can't be teleporting now, due to the fact that you're 'conserving energy' for the battle with that Naraku?"

"Well…"

"And _why_, when you _promised _me yesterday that you wouldn't, did you spy on me deliberately—"

"Actually—"

"—_which is in the guidelines,_" she cut in, "as I think it would qualify as something perverted, don't you?"

"Er…"

"_Well?_" she snapped.

He shrank back as far as he could against his little niche in the desk. "Okay, Sango, okay!" he gave in, raising his hands in surrender. "I peeked on you!"

"Damn right you did!" she yelled, letting her anger unleash itself. "Have you _no decency at all? _You call yourself a Beyond? What the hell kind of an angel _are _you, anyway! Breaking your promises, _spying _on girls _while they're changing_, downright _lying_—"

"I know!" he interjected, stepping out of the desk. "And I know I betrayed your trust and all, but I just couldn't help it. But I promise you, I swear, I won't do it again."

"Why should I believe your promises?" she asked suspiciously. "You didn't do very well this time, did you?"

"Trust," he put in. "And I know you don't trust me now, but you will."

"Right," she snorted. She glanced down at her uniform. "How am I supposed to change now? _Obviously _I can't do it with you around."

"I won't peek."

"Yeah, like I'm believing _that _a second time."

"I won't, I swear." She arched an eyebrow at him, and he sighed. "I really won't, but if you're so skeptical, change in the closet. You would see if I teleported in there."

"What if you did that invisible thing that you did when you first saw me and you groped my butt in school?" she challenged.

"I can't become invisible to you," he replied truthfully. "I could before because I wasn't tied down to you as a Beyond, but once I chose you, I lost the ability to do so. I can make myself invisible to anyone but you, and I am not allowed to physically hurt you." He paused. "Not that I would, anyway."

"I'm still not sure if I believe you," she said grudgingly. "How about this? I go in there and change, but you have to stand out here counting so I know you're not peeking."

"Fair enough."

Still glaring at him, Sango backed up into the closet with her uniform, changing at the speed of light while listening intently to his counting. When he made it to 16, she was done.

"That was quick," he commented.

She shrugged. "It's a gift. Now, I have to go to school, but while I'm gone…"

"While you're gone?" he repeated blankly. "But I'm going with you."

"You can't follow me to school, Miroku," she pointed out, trying not to panic at the thought of bringing that pervert near school grounds. "People will notice if I take some guy in with me, and the teachers definitely wouldn't allow it."

"That's why I'll go invisible so that you're the only one who can see me. And when I talk to you, you'll be the only one who can hear me."

Sango hesitated to think about it. Having Miroku by her side the entire day wouldn't be the _worst _thing, she supposed, though she wasn't exactly looking forward to it. And she could really just ignore him the whole time, since she was in school and was supposed to be focusing on her studies. It was a lot more preferable than leaving him in her room where he would likely dig through her underwear drawer again or watch porn on their living room television.

Kohaku knocked on her door. "Sis?" he called. "We're leaving soon, are you ready to go?"

"You can come," she murmured at last. "But make sure you stay invisible."

He gave her a quick thumbs-up, which Sango took for a yes.

"I'm coming, Kohaku," she yelled. "Hold on!"

Grabbing her backpack, she hefted it on her shoulders and opened the door, holding her breath as Miroku passed by her right to where Kohaku was standing. What if Kohaku _did _see? How would she possibly explain having a guy in her room?

"You coming?" Kohaku prompted.

She held back a sigh of relief. _He didn't see… _

"Told ya," Miroku teased in her ear.

"Shut up," she grumbled.

"What did you say?" Kohaku asked.

"Oh! Uh… nothing… just, uh, thinking aloud, you know…" God, she was bad at this. If this was going to work, she'd need to brush up on her lying skills.

"You've been acting really weird lately, sis," he commented.

"Uh. Have I?" Before he could answer, she rambled on, "Well, of course I've been acting weird, Kohaku! I mean, I've moved to a new city and a new school and I'm just, you know, really overwhelmed and stuff, so…"

"Whoa, calm down, I don't need to know your life story," he teased, but he was smiling. They reached the living room and Sango fished out her key from the pocket of her too-short skirt to lock it. Leaning down, she set the key into the lock, grinding her teeth together in irritation as she heard Miroku's snicker of pleasure at the extra flesh shown. Having him follow her around would be harder than she had thought, especially when she couldn't talk to him without looking crazy.

It was then that she felt him put his hand on her butt. Sango ground her teeth until she thought they might crumble, thinking carefully. She couldn't let him think he could get away with groping her all the time… in any normal situation, a slap was the most obvious answer. But this _wasn't _a normal situation, and Kohaku would think she were insane if she were to slap something invisible.

She sighed. _No slaps, then._

So she did the next best thing: she slammed the door straight into his face, grinning as she heard him wince at the grunt he made on impact.

And it felt pretty damn good, too.

* * *

Sango hastily scrawled down the problem on the board, trying to ignore how odd it was to see Miroku leaning against the window, drumming his fingers across the window making a sound only she could hear. He had, at first, been very excited with the prospect of school, which, to him, was a bunch of a girls with small skirts. He was also intrigued to see that Sango had befriended Kagome, having spoken to her before one of her classes. He'd hoped Inuyasha would be there, too, but was nowhere in sight. Most likely he had gotten in a fight with Kagome again. Now, in the middle of pre-calculus and almost four hours at this school, he looked about as bored as the other students.

"Hey." Miroku suddenly appeared behind her. "When does this class end?"

Sango scribbled down _10 minutes _before going back to her worksheet. She was erasing often, running a hand through her hair and letting out little hisses of irritation. He glanced down at the work she was doing and winced. He wasn't stupid, that was for sure, but the bunches of numbers and contraptions around them all looked terribly confusing. He was beginning to regret his decision to accompany her to school; while the girls in short skirts were all over the place, there weren't too many attractive girls with legs that could compare to Sango's. He felt a rush of pride at the thought.

_I've chosen well._

Miroku glanced up at the clock. It was a strange contraption, but one that was simple enough to figure out, as it was a bit like a sundial. He could tell now that the bell would ring in about seven minutes.

"Sango?"

She darted her eyes up toward him momentarily to show she was listening.

"May I just say that you look absolutely lovely right now?"

She hastily wrote something on her notebook. Miroku leaned down to read it: _Shut up, you pervert. I'm trying to work here. And what's with the random compliments?_

He shrugged. "Well, you _do _look ravishing," he remarked. "I would think a lady can't be told that too many times."

She rolled her eyes, but he could see that she was blushing.

_Thanks, but I don't need the compliments, _she wrote.

He shrugged. "All right, then." He began to drum his fingers again, tapping his foot along with it to further show his boredom. Sighing, he began to count the tiles on the walls, then the number of tiles on the floors as well.

"Sango?" the teacher said loudly, cutting through Miroku's thoughts. "What's the answer?"

"Um…" Sango glanced down at her paper and flushed. "I haven't solved it yet."

The teacher frowned, looking irritated. "You were given a sufficient amount of time," he replied sharply. "If you can't keep up with this class, then I'm afraid you're not suited for it."

"I… I'm sorry," she apologized quickly, ducking her head down and struggling to finish the problem. Miroku gaped in shock at the teacher. No man, elderly or otherwise, should speak to Sango, _his _Sango, in such a manner.

"Why didn't you say something?" he demanded to Sango. She didn't bother responding. He waited for her to finish up her problem—and thankfully, getting it right—before asking again.

_Because I don't talk back to my teachers, _she was writing. _I'm not disrespectful, unlike some people I know._

"The way he talked to you was completely rude," Miroku pointed out with a frown. "There was no reason for him to speak to you that way." He was surprised to find that he actually was a bit angry; he'd seen women being acted upon more harshly by their own husbands while he was alive. And Sango was right, it wasn't the smartest to talk back to a sensei, yet still… he didn't approve of the way the man spoke to Sango as if she were stupid, when he knew she was anything but.

Before Miroku could say anything more to Sango, the bell gave its usual ear-splitting shriek, signaling the end of the class. The students shot out of their seats like catapults, and Miroku followed suit, just as eager to get out of the classroom as the rest of them.

He paused at the doorway, glancing backwards. The teacher was writing something upon the board, probably preparing for the next class. Miroku narrowed his eyes and the chalk exploded in the teacher's hand, spraying chalk dust all over his shirt. He gave a silent laugh at the man's horror when he saw that not only had the chalk seemingly exploded of its own accord, but now his neatly pressed white shirt was covered with yellow chalk dust.

Sango, waiting in the hallway, saw none of this. "Are you coming?" she muttered to Miroku.

He gave one last look at the teacher, just to remember his gawking face. Then he turned back to Sango, "Yeah," he replied, and followed her out into the hall.

* * *

**AN: **Okay, I realized just what a terrible authoress I am when I saw that a bunch of writers have been responding to their reviewers, and all I've basically been saying is thanks. So, I wrote out some responses to the reviewers of the last chapter, and I'll probably keep doing this for every few chapters.

**Taishoku Kurayami: **Yes, I agree with that theory. And it's odd, because Kikyou and Kagura are my second favorite females after Sango, too… and let me guess, Miroku and Sesshoumaru are your favorite males?

**Nessa03: **Aw, thanks! I hope you like it… as for the lemon, I don't think I'll be writing one for a while, since I'm still only a freshman in highschool and my mind is as pure as a spring field (okay, who can tell that's a complete lie?) But… yeah. I'm not really comfortable writing that kind of stuff yet. But yeah, I'll have some fluff. My other story, "In the Dark Places," will have lime, but no lemon.

**Pobbin: **Heh, Sango really does need to learn subtlety. I think it's more that she just panicked and did the first thing that popped into her mind (tackling her brother, that is… hey, she _has _got a warrior's mind). Thanks for the compliments, I'm so glad you like it! I feel a bit like I'm going off track into Fluff Land here, but the plot really will be introduced soon. And I was thinking about Kohaku turning on the TV, but decided it would be even too cruel for me to do. The poor boy's the purest thing since mineral water, after all.

**Aamalie: **smiles Hope you liked Miroku's little spying scheme… I didn't do a bathroom scene yet, though. I have to wait until I've mastered the pairing enough to write something as intense as a bathroom scene. even more of a dork

**Blood Red Emereld: **Thanks a lot! I'm glad you like the story so far… keep on reviewing! I love reading 'em!

**heart of flame: **Heh, I'm guessing you liked the first bits of fluff? Well, I hope so, at any rate. And I'm glad you're thinking it's funny… I was really worried it wouldn't come off too funny to those that read it, but I'm happy at least one person thought it was.

**lodz: **Yes, I made another person laugh! And I'm glad you liked last chapter… hoped you liked this one too.

**FlamingRedFox: **You're right, Sango _will _never have a moments' peace with Miroku around. And thanks for the compliment! I don't exactly think this story is as wonderful as you say, but I certainly hope others think so!

**Irasuto: **Yay, another person who enjoyed the chapter! Heh, and you're right, Sango's far from perfect, in this story and the actual series. But we can't all be perfect, you know.

**Lily Thorne: **Thanks for the review! I always like getting new reviews, and I hope you keep on reading.

And just in case anyone mentions this in the future, I'd like to address the matter of high schools. Normally, in a Japanese high school, the students would stay in the same classroom and the teachers would be the ones moving. Also, there would be school on Saturday and there would be different type of lockers, if there were any at all. However, since I am much more familiar with US high schools, as after all, I attend one myself, I figure I shouldn't write something I don't really know about, ie Japanese high schools, and spare myself from sounding like an idiot.

With that aside, let me continue on my shameless self-promotion: Review, people! It makes my day!


	5. Kohakus Discovery

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **I am so, so unbelievably sorry for how late this is. I don't even have much an excuse… I just neglected my fanfictions for a while. But I'm back now, so no worries. I will _not _abandon this fic again! (Hopefully).

So without much ado, back to the story…

**ABOVE AND BEYOND**

**Chapter Five: **_Kohaku's Discovery_

* * *

Sango was more than a little relieved to exit school that day. She felt as though each day she entered that hellhole became a little worse, as if she was purposefully being tortured or something. Her calculus teacher was a complete prick, the food sucked, and it seemed that Kagome was the only person willing to actually _talk _to her within the whole school.

Barring Miroku, of course.

Speaking of which…

The monk in question was not beside her, as he had been only a minute ago.

Sango stopped abruptly, feeling uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. What was he doing _now?_

It took only a minute to find him. His hand was clasped tightly around another girl's—another woman's really, as she looked to be at least twenty-five. Her eyebrows were raised in confusion.

_Shit, _Sango thought in slight panic. _Can she see_ _him?_

Miroku's next words answered her question. "Hello, beautiful maiden," he said, his voice becoming deeper. "Would you be so kind as to bear my child?"

"Eh—what?"

People had stopped and were staring at him. Sango had no doubt now: Miroku was definitely visible to the rest of the world.

"Bear my child," Miroku repeated, without missing a beat. "You see—"

She couldn't take any more of this. Jostling through the crowd, she grabbed his hand and tore it from the woman's. "Miroku!" she hissed disapprovingly. "What do you think you're doing!"

"Sango!" Miroku brightened, looking generally pleased to see her. Sango held back a snort. As if. He had just _been _with her a second ago, before he'd gone and harassed that poor woman.

She dragged him away from the woman and the rest of the onlookers, until they were nearly a block away. Then she took him down a deserted alleyway. She didn't want the same thing to happen as yesterday… him disappearing like that in front of everyone…

When they were deeper in, so that she was positive no one could see them, she stopped, fighting the urge to slam him against the wall. As it was, she didn't manage to stop the slight shove that her hands had seemingly done of their own accord.

Miroku grinned. "Alone in an alleyway, Sango? I didn't know you were like that." He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

"You—you're so—_pervert_!" she exclaimed, so shocked that her sentence came out jerky and garbled. She took a deep, soothing breath, trying not to lose her temper with him again. "I came down here because I don't want anyone seeing you disappear," she said shortly.

"Disappear?"

"Yes." She fixed him with a glare. "I don't want you doing that anymore."

"What do you mean?" he asked innocently.

She smacked his arm. "What I _mean_ is I don't want you showing yourself off to people just so you can hit on some pretty girl in the street!"

"Oh," he said, giving a short laugh. "Is that what this is about? Oh, Sango, don't worry, it's perfectly normal to be jealous!"

Silence.

Then…

"_Jealous?" _she growled menacingly. _"Jealous!_ Oh, please, do you _really _think I would be _jealous_ of you hitting on some random girl? I don't even _know _you!" Her hands were balled into fists and she was glaring at him. "I'm mad because you said you would be invisible to everyone but me!"

"I was!" he said quickly, the first threads of alarm on his face. Good; he could sense her anger. "No one saw me at all during school…"

"But that girl saw you!" she shouted. "And all those other people looking on, too!"

"Yeah, but now we're out of school," he pointed out. "So it's not like it matters if people can see me now or not."

"It does matter," she sighed, feeling her anger deflate into, once again, exasperation. "I mean, you don't exactly blend in, what with the outfit and the whole monk thing…"

He shrugged. "I could just change, then," he pointed out. "If I wore different clothes, would it be all right if people saw me?"

Sango considered the prospect. Miroku certainly _looked _human enough; it was the monk's outfit and the weird staff that she was worried about. If he changed… well, he would blend in perfectly fine. But how would she get clothes for him? _Well, _she thought, _I guess I could take something from my dad's closet…_

"Okay," she relented. "But not in school, okay? I think people would wonder why I had a guy trailing me."

Miroku nodded and smiled. "That works for me." He paused. "Do you want me to become invisible now?"

"Yes. Please," she added, so as not to sound rude. She had, after all, been a little short with him.

Okay. A _lot _short with him.

They began to walk out of the alley way and, sure enough, no one spared Miroku a second glance. She turned right on the corner, heading for Kohaku's school.

"Hey, Miroku?" she asked suddenly a minute later.

"Yes?"

"How, um…" She blushed a bit. "How exactly would that girl bear your child when you're a… well, a spirit?"

Miroku rubbed his chin, as if considering what she'd said for the first time. "You're right I suppose," he murmured. "She _couldn't _bear my child, not really."

"So why did you ask?" she inquired, chastising herself for sounding so nosy, but wanting to know all the same.

He shrugged. "Habit. I used to do it all the time in my old life."

Sango's eyes widened. "You mean… you actually used to ask girls that—that _vulgar _question? And you did it _all the time_?"

Miroku nodded. "Well, I had to didn't I?" he said, in what sounded like a reasonable tone (though there was certainly nothing reasonable about his way of thinking). "I mean, with the _kazaana _a looming threat, I had to produce an heir who would kill Naraku if I didn't succeed."

"And did you?" she asked uncertainly.

"What?"

"Produce an heir," she said impatiently. "Did you?"

He sighed. "Unfortunately, the _kazaana _came a little earlier than I had anticipated, and I didn't manage to leave behind a child. That's why I registered to become a Beyond, you see. I still have to defeat Naraku."

Sango opened her mouth, but couldn't think of anything to say to that, so shut it again. They were making their way to the Middle School now. Sango could see the various kids filing out of the doors, pushing and shoving others on their eager way out.

"Listen," she said quickly. "I can't talk to you when I have Kohaku, or he's going to think I'm insane. He's already suspecting something as it is."

Miroku shrugged. "All right."

Sango sat by the bench and waited for Kohaku to come out. He was taking quite a while… usually he was one of the first to come out…

Now only a few students were exiting, most of them having already done so. Sango shifted nervously, but said nothing. Minutes passed by in silence.

"Where do you think he is?" she asked uncertainly, when there was still no sign of her brother. "D'you think he used a different exit or someth—_oh my god, what happened to you!_"

Kohaku had just staggered out of the building. He was looking worse for wear; his collar was ripped and he had a large black eye where a purplish bruise was blooming. There was another bruise on the bottom side of his left cheek, though it wasn't quite as bad as the other one.

Sango stood and rushed over to where he was, hovering over him anxiously. "Are you okay?" she asked. "What happened?"

Kohaku scuffed the ground with his foot. "I'm fine," he muttered. "I just… I—I tripped, that's all…"

"Tripped?" she repeated flatly. "_Tripped_? Kohaku, do you think I'm stupid? Someone beat the hell out of you!"

"No, sis," Kohaku mumbled. His words were so quiet they were barely coherent. "No one did anything. I just fell down."

Sango chanced a glance at Miroku, who was wearing a frown on his face. She turned back to Kohaku, putting her hands on his shoulders and lifting his chin so that he could see her face. "Kohaku. Listen to me. I want to know who did this to you. Was it that boy from yesterday?"

Kohaku hesitated. "It—it wasn't anyone," he said, after a minute. "I told you, I tripped."

Sango raised one shaking hand to her temple, trying to quell the furious headache that had burst upon her. The thought of Kohaku getting hurt—or her little brother being mistreated—made her so angry that she started to tremble.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Miroku. "Don't," he advised quietly. "If he doesn't want you to know, let it go. You'll find out when he's ready."

Sango scowled at him, then looked back at her brother. "Kohaku—"

"Just _drop _it, okay?" he insisted nervously.

She sighed. "Okay," she said, the word coming out of her mouth grudgingly. "Okay."

And with all her self-preservation she had, she closed her mouth and turned away from Kohaku's bruised and battered face.

* * *

"I can't _believe _this!"

Miroku sighed heavily from his perch on Sango's bed. He had done his best to speak reasonably, so as to calm Sango down; however, she seemed not to have a heard a word he said, instead continuing to pace back and forth, wringing her hands and speaking furiously.

"I _know _it was that Yukio kid, I just _know _it," she said angrily. "Why doesn't Kohaku just _tell _me? He knows I'd kill those kids for daring to touch him!"

"I think that's exactly why he doesn't want you knowing," Miroku put in mildly. Sango stopped pacing to direct her glare at him.

"What do you mean?" she demanded. "Why wouldn't he want me knowing?"

"Well," Miroku began. "I think he realizes that if you found out, you would warn those kids or tell on them or something, which would make everyone think he needs his older sister to solve his problems."

"I'm his sister, I have a _right _to solve his problems!" she said heatedly.

"I know you do," Miroku said placidly. "But maybe… maybe you're going about this the wrong way." Sango opened her mouth to argue, but before she could, he continued, "I mean, think about it. Kohaku's at a stage where it's important to look tough in front of your peers. Complaining to you—or anyone—might, in retrospect, make him seem weak."

"He's not weak, though!" Sango protested.

"Of course he's not," Miroku assured her. "It's just what others might think."

"That's so stupid," she grumbled. Miroku could tell she was angry at the prospect of being unable to help Kohaku. "So what should I do?"

"Did I hear right?" he asked teasingly. "You're _asking _me for advice? I thought you didn't need a Beyond."

"Oh, shut up," she muttered, but he saw the faintest trace of a smile.

"I think for the moment, you should let Kohaku be," he said. "He'll tell you if he wants to."

Sango still looked unconvinced.

"Okay, how about this?" Miroku suggested. "If any more violence like this continues, _then _you can talk to him about it. But for now, I wouldn't take any direct action."

She sighed. "I guess so," she muttered. "But it still makes me uneasy."

Miroku couldn't help but smile in pride. He had chosen _excellently _when he'd spotted Sango; she was pretty, feisty, smart, and loyal. And had a slap that could take just about anyone out.

_Genius, _he thought, smirking. _I could just have Naraku somehow feel up Sango… she'd slap him so hard he'd probably surrender on the spot…_

"What are you smirking at?" she asked suspiciously.

"Nothing," he answered, still smirking.

Sango rolled her eyes skyward. "Okay…" she relented. She turned to the door. "I'm going to get something to eat. You want anything?"

"Really?" he asked eagerly. He could have sworn that his stomach grumbled at the prospect of food—he hadn't eaten in five hundred years, after all. "You'd get me something?"

She shrugged. "Sure."

"So I can become visible now?" he asked. "I can't eat unless I'm visible. To everyone."

"That's fine," she replied shortly. "As long as you stay in here. My dad would _flip_ if he saw me hanging out with some guy."

"Okay," Miroku agreed. His mouth was watering at the prospect of food. "What do you have?"

"I think we have some left-over pizza," she said. "I'll go heat some up. Stay here, okay?"

Miroku nodded, watching Sango as she bustled out of the room. He closed his eyes quickly, becoming visible. Instantly, he felt more tangible—and his stomach was _definitely _growling now. He sighed, imagining what food would taste like. It seemed like such a long time ago that he'd eaten…

His eyes whirled open at the sound of the door opening. _Already? That was quick…_

He turned eagerly to face his food…

And stopped. It wasn't Sango in the doorway.

It was Kohaku.

* * *

Kohaku waited until Sango was in her room when getting home—it didn't take long, she'd run right in there—and then grabbed an ice-pack, holding it up to his bruised face. Relief spread through him at the stinging sensation it caused.

He hadn't exactly been convincing with his sister, he knew that. He _knew _that she knew he was lying. But he couldn't tell her he'd gotten beaten up by those eighth graders, or he knew for a fact she'd come to his aid, try to protect him—and make him seem weak. As if he needed to hide behind his sister.

Which was at times true. Kohaku had never been someone to solve his own problems easily.

He placed the ice pack back in the refrigerator, walking down the hallway to his room. He could hear the low mutter of a voice in Sango's room.

"…_wouldn't he want me knowing?"_

He paused; it sounded, from Sango's tone, as if she were talking to someone—but there was no reply.

"_I'm his sister, I have a _right _to solve his problems!" _she was saying heatedly.

Kohaku frowned. Who was she even talking to? No one was responding to her.

_She's probably on the phone, you idiot, _he told himself. He wondered who she was on the phone with, and hoped sincerely it wasn't his dad. He would probably get a long pep talk about being a man and how he should stick up for himself.

Disheartened at the thought, he trudged toward his room. He didn't want to hear any more of what Sango was telling his father. _Maybe I should just tell her, _he considered. _That way, I wouldn't have to deal with Dad…_

He thought about telling his sister. She would freak out, he just knew it. Heck, she already _was _freaking out, and he hadn't even confirmed her suspicions. She would probably march to school with him the next day and threaten all of the boys. He cringed at the thought. Sango _meant _well, of course; but she wouldn't understand why he would find it so embarrassing.

_I'm just looking out for you, Kohaku, _she would say. And he would feel guilty for not being appreciative, and tell her thank you.

Okay, so telling Sango was out of the picture…

Although from the sound of it, she'd already told his dad. Maybe Kohaku would call him right now, find up some excuse for his injuries… after all, the longer his father believed Sango, the harder it would be to convince him otherwise.

He turned, heading back to Sango's room. He craned his ear at the closed door, but he couldn't hear Sango speaking. He let out a sigh of relief. Well, that was good, anyway. The phone was in there, though… he would have to face his sister…

He turned the doorknob, tentatively opening the door.

Kohaku usually wasn't lost for words. Sure, he was _quiet _often enough, but he was never actively unable to speak. But for the first time, he found himself floundering for _something _to say.

This was probably due to the fact that, instead of Sango sitting on the small single bed, there was a boy there instead. An _older _boy; a lot older. And he was staring at Kohaku unblinkingly.

"Um…" Kohaku continued to flounder helplessly. "I—I, um—"

_Oh, no, _he thought desperately. _She has a boyfriend! She has a boyfriend that she's hiding in her room!_

"I—I was just, um, looking for the phone…"

How did the boyfriend _get _in here, anyway? Had he come in during the few minutes that Kohaku had been in his room? Had he been here before they'd even gotten back? Was _this _who Sango was really talking to?

"Can you close that door?"

Kohaku looked up at the boyfriend, who was watching him innocently. "W-what?" he squeaked.

"The door," the boyfriend said, motioning. "Can you close it?"

It seemed like an odd request, but Kohaku did as asked, shutting the door and turning back to the boyfriend, who was sighing. "Guess you're a bit confused, huh?"

"A little," Kohaku admitted. He blushed, then said quickly, "Are you my sister's boyfriend?"

The boyfriend—_was _he the boyfriend?—chuckled. "You think I'm her boyfriend?"

"Yes," Kohaku muttered. "Er—you _are_, aren't you?"

"No," the boyfriend—okay, _not _the boyfriend—sighed. "I'm just… a friend, I guess you could say. I'm sort of helping Sango out… you know, because you guys just moved here and all."

"Oh…" Kohaku continued to stare. "But—but why didn't she tell me about you?"

The boy shrugged. "She's shy." He looked up at Kohaku, surveying him with dark blue eyes. "So you're Kohaku, huh?"

"Um, yes."

"She's been pretty worried about you, you know," the boy said conversationally. "Thinks you've been beat up. Which is clearly true, but I managed to dissuade her from taking any action. I knew you wouldn't like that."

"So _you _were the one she was talking to!" Kohaku realized.

The boy grinned. "Eavesdropping, are you?"

Kohaku blushed. "No, I just… overheard, that's all…"

The boy laughed. "It's okay. I won't tell Sango." He stood up and held out his hand. "Miroku."

"What?"

"My name," he explained, laughing. "Miroku."

"Oh!" Kohaku shook Miroku's outstretched hand. "I'm Kohaku."

"Nice to meet you, Kohaku."

"Er…" Kohaku glanced back at the closed door. "D'you know where Sango even went?"

"She went to get us something to eat," he said with a shrug. "I'm starving."

Kohaku could barely contain his confusion. This Miroku certainly _seemed _nice (although he was certainly dressed a little odd) and everything, but why was Sango keeping him secret? Was he actually her boyfriend?

Could Kohaku trust him?

He glanced over at Miroku. He was sitting on the bed, legs spread out lazily, his lips twisted into a small smile. Kohaku was good at judging people—and this guy seemed to be trustworthy.

"Can I ask you something?" he said quietly.

"You just did," Miroku pointed out.

"Oh, well, I mean… besides that."

"Sure," he said breezily. "Shoot."

"Well…" Kohaku began hesitantly. "There's this guy in my school. Yukio. Well, it's not just him, there's a couple, but he's the main one. They, um, don't like me too much, I guess because I'm new, or because I'm, well, I'm kind of poor…" He blushed, but continued on. "Anyway, they threatened to beat me up yesterday, and I wasn't sure if they were serious. But today, right after school, a couple of them _did _beat me up…"

"So you're wondering what to do about them?" Miroku asked.

Kohaku nodded vigorously. "Exactly. I don't want my sister to know, because, well…"

"She's kind of anal and would kick those kids' asses?" Miroku finished for him, grinning.

"Er, yeah, actually," Kohaku admitted, smiling in spite of himself. "And I know she's trying to stick up for me, but… I don't want to have to hide behind my sister."

"I'll tell you what," Miroku murmured. "These kids sound like a bunch of idiots to me. Strong, but they have no brains. You intimidate them and they'll leave you alone."

"Intimidate?" Kohaku repeated. "But—but I'm not very intimidating."

Miroku grinned, looking positively evil. "Oh, don't worry, we can work on that."

Kohaku couldn't help it; his face split into an identical grin. "Okay."

"But for now, you get back to your room and put some ice on that eye," Miroku said, suddenly sounding business-like. "Sango will be back soon."

Kohaku nodded and turned to go. On his way out, he turned back to Miroku and said quickly, "Hey, um… thanks."

He closed the door behind him, but still heard Miroku's reply.

"No problem."

* * *

Review Responses…

**Irusato: **Haha, yes, Miroku and Sango both aren't the most sophisticated liars… and yeah, I wish I could blow up chalk in teacher's faces, too.

**Nessa03: **Well, I'm still writing! Of course, I _am _a bit late… (ducks)

**Fantastical Queen Ebony Black: **Okay, now I'm really feeling guilty… I didn't update very soon… but at least I updated! That's something, right? Right?

**Shamanic Destiny: **Hmm… Ayame? I don't know, right now she's not planned in, but I might be able to squeeze her and Kouga in somewhere.

**Sarcasm Girl8: **Haha, love the name! And thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying.

**Ennarial: **Yes, Miroku is great, isn't he? I love that boy.

**Heart of Flame: **Wow, I'm really glad you like it! I'm trying to make it funny, but I've never actually found myself too humorous… so I'm glad some people do at least!

**Lady-Sango77: **Yes, Miroku is kind of her imaginary friend, isn't he? Lol. I used to have an imaginary friend too. Her name was Sally and she died in a jet-skiing accident. (Don't ask).

**LilyThorne: **Yep, Sango's _definitely _in for a few headaches…

**SapphireWhiteTigress: **I'm glad you like it! I'm going to try to update more often, now that I've gone through my whole neglectful stage…

**SemisonicConfusion888: **Sorry for the long wait! And… well, I'm sorry for another long wait! blushes I'll try to update a _lot _sooner this time to keep you happy.

**FlamingRedFox:** Haha, thank you very much! I'm glad this a good read for anyone who's sick. I'll try keeping up the wonderful work, but I don't really think it's that wonderful myself…

**Ladysango-abc: **Well, I updated! Probably not as soon as you liked, but at least it's here… (finally)

**Veglma: **I'm glad you like! Yes, Miroku's very protective of Sango, and no fat calculus teacher is going to stop him…

**Aamalie: **Thanks for your review! It was actually your comment that made me update. I felt so awful! I'm glad you like the interaction between Sango and Miroku… I'm trying to keep it on the fluffier side. Lol, can you tell?

**SetsuntaMew: **Aww, thanks a lot! I'm really glad you like it. And that you find it funny! That's what I was really worried about.


End file.
